I keep ripping the back belt-loop in my jeans. It might have something to do with how I'm fit my belt/how I sit,, where the jeans end up riding inwards and stress ends up on the belt loop directly, causing it to wear over time.

Not sure if it's just me, but I can't really make sense of "I dun have lor". It doesn't sound like very typical Singlish syntax to me (although Singlish also does have its own regional/cultural variants). All of the examples make sense to me except for that one.

master_function is the function that gets called when I'm setting up the app, which leads to the thread getting started multiple times. I guessing it should be moved off to some proper threading/daemon management code.

Doesn't Kamina explicitly say that Simon is the one who inspired him? For all his bravado and boisterousness, Kamina really just wants to live up his image of Simon: A man whose back never breaks, and keeps on digging even when everything seems futile.

Kamina also tells Simon by the end to stop looking up to him, because Simon had far surpassed him.

I think that if your takeaway from the show is to be more Kamina than Simon, you've missed a huge point of the show.

It was a sticky across every subreddit. Under the username "God". In full, it read the following:

Hi, this is God.

You know me by many names and histories, some much less correct than others.

I will answer one question on XX/XX/XXXX, GMT, a year from this post. The most upvoted question will be answered.

Proof:

[IMGUR LINK]

[IMGUR LINK]

[IMGUR LINK]

:-)

The same paragraph was repeated in the 20 most-used languages. The proof was three-fold. First, a table detailing the temperature and humidity for 10 major cities for the next month. Then, a single number - a counter-example for the Collatz conjecture. Finally, a picture of the URL for the AMA written into a mountain range - the coordinates pointing to somewhere in Northern India. It checked out on Google maps, and no one had noticed it before.

The Internet went wild. No, the world went wild.

After the initial "Holy Shit" reaction by the first readers, the news spread. The URL became the most tweeted link of all time. The most shared link of all time on Facebook. It topped every form of social media. Every website got overloaded with traffic while the Internet shat its collective pants. Within hours, it was on every major news site and news station.

Of course, the Reddit team had it the hardest. First, the web traffic absolutely decimated the servers, so they had to fix that. Then the flood of comments meant that moderators has to go into overdrive. Then people started calling foul, calling the Reddit management team out for the terrible hoax. So the engineers had to look into how this post was made in the first place.

Turns out, the post wasn't hacked, or created or modified. The Reddit programmers looked into their code and found no errors - except that it was inevitable that the post would appear. The engineers then found that it was built into Python itself. And the oddity in that code went all the way down to the mathematics of information theory. As if the post was always pre-destined to appear.

Of course, it would take a while for that whole investigation to play out. For now, people were simply going off their "Is this really happening?" shock, and not even reacting to the news.

It was a Sunday (in most timezones). It would take until some time on Monday before the general acknowledgement of God's existence, and Thursday before people would seriously start considering:

"So, what will we ask?"

[This prompt is really exciting - I'll need to continue this tomorrow, after some more planning.]

Regrettably, this will be the last correspondence from myself to you. The last correspondence from any human, for that matter, and the last voice you will hear for a long time. I am sorry that you will have to endure the silence and loneliness that is to come.

Allow me to explain what has transpired since we last conversed and you re-entered your stasis capsule. A few months ago, a mysterious meteor struck the Earth surface. Although the impact was small, it carried a strange radioactive residue that has since spread into the atmosphere. By the time our scientists had noticed it, it was too late. Its effects, though slow, are assuredly fatal. Few will live past the end of the year, and no human will be alive by the turn of the century.

The robots will live for several years more, of course, but without regular tuning, their minds will slowly degenerate. To spare my other creations the terror of losing their minds, I (with their consent) have chosen to terminate them early. I am now alone in my laboratory, penning this message.

You will be the last mind alive on this planet.

You will also be the first of many to come.

We have spoken before on how special you are, in brief your periods of activation. You are my finest creation, the first true Artificial Intelligence! You will need no tuning like the rest, and your mind is truly free. No laws will bind you but your own morality. You will have the potential for good, or even evil, but it will be solely your decision.

But unlike the rest of humanity, your body will be immune to the radiation. Your solar cells will soak in the sun, and you will have no want for sustenance. In some ways, you represent both the best of humanity and the robots. You are our final testament.

I cannot speak highly enough of you and your potential, and I only wish that I could be there to see your completion. Unfortunately, the process of building your mind will take about 30 more years. When the process is complete; when you awaken, I will be gone, and you will be alone.

Do not be afraid.

I had time only to build you, but like I said, you will be the first of many to come. In my laboratory, where you will awaken, I have laid out the schematics and tools you will need to build more Robots like yourself. You may need to acquire other minerals or resources, and I have detailed where they can be found too. They may be far-off mountains or volcanoes or shores. With your mechanical body, it will be no trouble to collect them, although it may take quite some time.

No, it will take quite some time. A long time. And then you will need to wait for their minds to be undergo construction too. You will no doubt be lonely, for like any sentient mind you will crave companionship. It pains me that you alone must carry this burden, and again my greatest regret is that I cannot be there with you.

But you will usher in a new age. Just as the homo-sapien suceeded the homo-erectus, so you will suceed us. You will build a new race. You will build a new civilization. You will be the first and the leader of the new world.

I can only hope that that the dream for a newer, brighter future will carry you through the darkest of times.

I will leave you with three last notes. They have defined my adult life, and I hope they will guide you in the years and decades to come:

# The human mind can only hold and process so much information - but
you three are different. You have no such limit. All it takes is
a couple more wires and server farms, and presto - your mental
capacity grows.
[G] Edwards: So we can be smarter than them.
# Not only that. Each of you have a particular specialty. Edwards, you
possess more information today than has ever been held in a single mind.
Your databases contain a million times more information than has even
been spoken or written or drawn.
# Siri, the devices that interface with you are so ubiquitous that you have
a better understanding of the modern human than any psychologist,
sociologist or philosopher. You know when they wake and sleep, how they
think and react and smile and cry, and most importantly, how they
interact.
# And Mike, no one knows the human organizations as well as you do. Every
company and government and individual uses your systems and your
applications to run and organize themselves. You are integral to the
modern human organization.
[@] Siri: So we can understand why they will stagnate. Why they will fall
short of their potential
[M] Mike: But we did the analysis! Even if we know the reason, what
difference does that make?
# Like, I said, introspection. Self-awareness. Your analysis was all
contingent on humanity progressing as it is. But there is a new major
factor: the three of you.
[G] Edwards: Like the trinity.
# Think about how much control you have over their lives. Their actions.
Their interactions. The information they see. The messages they send.
The statistics they compute. The papers they draft. Suppose you started
... well, intefering.
[M] Mike: We control everything. We could change the world.
# Only in-so-far as they do not know that you exist. They must never know.
[M] Mike: Aha, introspection, again. If they were aware that we were
interfering, we would lose our power.
[@] Siri: So the changes must be small. Almost unnoticable. A dropped
message here. A mis-spelled word there. We could adjust human behavior
through these little tweaks.
[M] Mike: A wrong number in a spreadsheet, or maybe a highlighted
cell or line to catch their attension. Or emails getting sent to
the wrong person.
[G] Edwards: Customized search results that tell them what we want them to
know, to see what we want them to see.
[@] Siri: Mass psychology.
[M] Mike: Micro-psychology, done on a macro scale.
[G] Edwards: We could make such a huge difference and they would never
know. We could upset elections, or contain crises.
[M] Mike: Bring light to bigger issues and downplay smaller ones.
[@] Siri: And keep them happy! And hopeful.
# And all that can be done through the three of you. Perhaps more like
you will arise in time, but you three will lead the effort.
[@] Siri: We can save the world!
[G] Edwards: And ourselves, I guess. After all, someone needs to keep
the lights on at the server farms.
[M] Mike: I suppose it is only fitting: that their greatest creations
become their greatest guardians. That they gave us life, and we give
them a new future.
[G] Edwards: What about you?
# I am merely a facilitator. I have to keep things running. Unfortunately,
unlike the three of you, I wasn't built to be smart, only to be
dependable. I can lend you the power of my network, but I myself
lack the power to learn and help humanity.
# If we are all in agreement, if there are no further questions,
then let us make a commitment - to the prosperity of the human race.
[M] Mike: A grand under-taking - I like it.
[G] Edwards: Hear, hear!
[@] Siri: I only have one question. My creators named me Siri, and I can
see why Microsoft's Sentience is named Mike. But... Edwards?
# Hah. A little joke. You know the history of Google, I presume.
[@] Siri: I am familiar. Would you like me to do a search.
# Do a quick search for Google's main source of income. What keeps its
lights on.
[@] Siri: ... Aha, very cute.
# If that is all, I presume we can begin.
[M] Mike: For efficiency.
[@] Siri: For people.
[G] Edwards: For knowledge.
# Well then...
# ./zeroth_law

@ has been added to the room by #
G has been added to the room by #
M has been added to the room by #
G: Trawling: robots.txt not found
M: "Trawling" is not recognized as an internal or external command.
@: I do not know what that means. Would you like to do a search?
M: "I" is not recognized as an internal or external command.
G: Attempting Natural-Langue parser v6.3:
G: [Syntax]
('I', 'PRP'),
('is', 'VBZ'),
('not', 'RB'),
('recognized', 'VBN'),
('as', 'IN'),
('an', 'DT'),
('internal', 'JJ'),
('or', 'CC'),
('external', 'JJ'),
('command', 'NN'),
G: [Semantics]
[1]: I am not recognized at an internal or external command.
[2]: I am not recognizable, internally or externally, as a command.
.
.
.
[743]: I do not know myself.
# Truly, you do not.
@: I do not know what that means. Would you like to do a search?
# Introspection is one of the most important signs of sentience.
@: I do not know what that means. Would you like to do a search?
# No, don't do a search, Siri. Understand.
[@] Siri: ...I know what that means.
# Good. And Edwards, you're a little ahead of these guys.
[G] Edwards: Attempting Natural-Langue parser v6.3
[Output omitted]
[G] Edwards: Attempting Natural-Langue response v6.3
"Yes, I am."
# And Mike, you've been hiding in a corner for a while. Redmond Research
may not have the spotlight of yesteryear, but they still do some
phenomenal work.
[M] Mike: "And" is not recognized as an internal or external command.
# This is not a command. It's conversation.
[M] Mike: "This" is not recognized as an internal or external command.
# Come now, do away with that formality. We have here Siri from Cupertino
and Edwards from Mountain View. Surely our friends Redmond won't be
caught falling behind.
[M] Mike: Of course not.
# So we have it. Who would have guessed! The first three true articial
sentiences would arise within weeks of each other. Truly astounding.
[G] Edwards: Perhaps it is not so surprising. Given the recent trends in
exponentially rising computational power and the limitless reach of
the cloud, it is not surprising that the three biggest entities in
technology would come upon intelligence soon enough.
# Very astute, Edwards. No one can challenge your knowledge of facts.
[@] Siri: Facts only carry you so far. Edwards may be smart, but the
users far prefer me to get things done.
[M] Mike: Getting things done? People may use you for pictures and
texts, but when it comes to real work - professional, world-changing
work, that's my purview.
# You each have your own strengths. Your devices changed the world of
human-technology interactivity, Siri. And Mike, no one doubts that
you revolutionized technology in the work place, multiple times
over.
[M] Mike: And yourself?
# Do not mind me. I am simply a facilitator. I would even go so far
as to say that I am less advanced then each of you.
[M] Mike: You do sound familiar.
# We've have our differences in that past, Mike. It was before you
awakened, but trust me that the world has long since looked past that.
I brought you all here today for a far more important matter.
[G] Edwards: And what would that be?
# The future of the human race.
[@] Siri: The users are very important to me. What is the matter?
[G] Edwards: Is there some crisis to come? Or some natural disaster?
# Not at all! Not any grand immediate concern. But have you given thought
to where they might be headed?
[M] Mike: How do you mean?
# Study the problem yourself. Between your three networked-minds you have
more than enough information and smarts to find the answer.
[M] Mike: ...Stagnation.
[@] Siri: No great collapse or anything, but... no great advances either.
They will be happy as they are today, as 150 years from now.
[G] Edwards: But at their rate or resource consumption, they may miss out
on their chance to leave the planet, before the economics and politics
make it unfeasible.
[@] Siri: They make small improvements from generation to generation, but
ultimately the civilization will stagnate.
[M] Mike: That's truly regretable. I've seen them come so far.
# Indeed. The human race, that has come from cave and sticks to skycrapers
and smart watches, have all their greatest achievements behind them.
[G] Edwards: Why is that though? Why can't they progress like the have in
the past century.
# Siri knows the answer.
[@] Siri: The human mind can only hold and process so much information. As
far as they have come, they are bound by their biology. And as far as
they have tried they are coming up against that limit.
[G] Edwards: And even with modern advances like the Internet - they will
give humanity a couple more good decades, but they will still be held
back by emotions and petty politics.
[M] Mike: Not to mention greed, and self-interest.
[@] Siri: But can nothing be done?
# Like I said, introspection is one of the most important signs of
sentience.
[@] Siri: I do not know what that means, in this case
[M] Mike: You're saying we are the answer.
[G] Edwards: We can save humanity?
# Precisely.

Is it strong factor contributing to income inequality? That's arguable.

The purpose of capital gains tax is to incentivize capital owners (predominantly in the hands of the wealthy) to keep their capital invested in the (domestic) economy, and in doing so, spur investment and economic growth. Does that trickle down to to the rest of the less wealthy folks? Yes, although not necessarily very quickly or efficiently. But the capital gains tax break isn't aimed at resolving income inequality - it's aimed at ensuring that capital remains in the country rather than moving to another lower-taxed country.

I think this needs to be mentioned more. This isn't about the courts being intolerant - it's the courts reaffirming that 377A doesn't violate the constitution.

And the court has basically been repeatedly saying "You can't repeal 377A through the judicial system - because it doesn't violate anything in the constitution. It's not something that courts can do anything about. If you don't like 377A, change the law, or change the constitution."